Monday, 28 April 2014

Today I finally managed to do my first ATB (Artist Trading Block). I haven't got the much celebrated Eileen Hull die, but it wasn't too complicated to create my own template as it just needed a bit of measuring, calculating and drawing.

I love the distress paint marbling effect and I thought I would use it on my first ATB and see how heavy distress paint marbling in vivid colours might look like when displayed as a cube...

As it is a cube I thought I might create an "artist's die"...a die to roll in case of loss of artistic confidence or mojo. It tells you what to do to get back on track ;)

This time the distress paint marbling went really well and I was excited to watch the distress paints do their magic on the once white card!

It was fun fiddling with the right sides to put together while stamping so the designs would run around the corners and edges!

The numbers were heat embossed using one of the TH stencils and various distress embossing powders (walnut stain, brown puffs, tea die).

Before I put the cube together I blended all edges with DI "gathered twigs". The six encouragement words were stamped onto a scrap on which I used the left overs from the paint marbling, cut out and glued in place. I blended them in with Distress markers.

I had a lot of fun messing around today and I hope a bit of it shows with my encouragement artists die! Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, 22 April 2014

I recently had a nice chat with lovely Lisa, the owner of That Craft Place store, and I mentioned a technique that included stencils made with the hot glue gun. She asked me if I would do a tutorial for her (and of course especially the readers and players over at her Natter&Chatter facebook group and the challenge blog).

Well, actually it became a five-in-one tutorial as I couldn't stop experimenting once I had started - it is so much fun! The five tags shown below were made with simple and easy to do circle and heart shaped masks I did with the hot glue gun - I used them not only as masks but also stamped with them to create these five grungy, artsy tags for your inspiration:

All of this can be bought at That Craft Place of course - either the (bricks and mortar or online)shop or the facebook shop group.

First I created my masks with the hot glue gun. I did some rather doodly circles and a "messy" looking heart. All it takes is applying the hot glue to your non stick craft sheet - doodle, try criss crossing, meandering,... - and let it harden and cool down. You will find that you get there after some practice.

Don't try to remove the hardened shapes too soon or you might tear them! I put the shapes I did onto some white card so you can see them a bit better (sorry that my "white" appears rather green-blue-ish, but I forgot to adjust the white balance):

As there was some colour residue on my craft mat the heart mask took
on some of it, but that didn't affect any of the stamping or using the
mask later.

Well, of course I started with the most simple way to use them: masking.

Put the masks in place. Spray with first colour:

Change position of masks and put them over the already sprayed circles (trying NOT to line up with your first images of the circles):

Spray again with a different colour...

...which in my case was turquoise, so I got three colours from two goes plus the white from the background card (yellow, turquoise (where the second spray paint hit the white card that had been masked when I applied the yellow spray paint, and green - where the yellow and turquoise had blended).

I used this for a tag I finished off with some word tiles I had stamped on some white card and glued in place:

I had also tried some circles using red spray paints but didn't like them too much...so I put those aside.

But I found that one of my messy circles shapes looks a bit like a rose, doesn't it? I didn't use the background I created with the vibrant reds for a tag, but I used the red and still wet spray paint on the hot glue gun masks to create a different effect. Let me show you how I did it with the heart shaped mask (as I forgot to take pictures of the circles in process *lol):

As you can see the paint is still wet on the mask... so I laid it on another piece of white card and gave it some really heavy spritzes with water from the spray bottle.

See the water pooling on the white card and in the gaps? You can leave it to dry slowly or help a little with the heating tool...but only lightly and very carefully, because you might overheat the hot glue and melt your mask! If you want the colours to be a light shade only you can also use a cloth and dab some of the excess off (as I did). The result from the heart shape looked like this afterwards...

...and my three circles produced this after I had wetted them with water:

As the colour (that sat on top of the masks before spraying them with water) gets soaked between the masks and the surface they are sitting on, it creates a kind of blurred "print" with a lovely watercolour effect (as you maybe can see with this picture from the experiment with the black spray mist):

I used a pair of tweezers to remove the hot glue gun masks. Once you have dried your print the sharper edges start getting visible! Love that effect!

As I said I also tried it with black spray mist (see how it is still wet on the hot glue masks?)...

...and I loved that grungy result even more:

See those light shades of gold? I had used the masks for a different experiment later and had some gold spray residue on them...so I placed them over the (dried) black circles again and sprayed again with water so the gold colour would run down and seep into the white card around the edges of the circle shapes.

The finished tag from this experiment:

But back to the heart! I had sprayed over the mask with some red colour sprays first,

which is the simplest way to use the hot glue masks. From the residue on the mask I created the watercolour effect heart I have shown you before:

But as I thought it was too subtle, I tried some stamping with the hot glue mask too. I inked the mask with Distress ink "black soot" (to do so I placed the mask on an acrylic bloc - which made inking it a lot easier). Then I used the tweezers again to put my mask/stamp in place (face down) and pressed using my fingers mainly. Keep in mind: as our hot glue mask hasn't got an even surface, using your fingers will help make a print from all sections of your hot glue shape - not only of the raised areas. I tried both sides of the mask - the flat one and the bumpy one. You can see the result from the bumpy one (using an acrylic bloc to press down) to the left and the result from the flat side being and stamped inked to the right (where I stamped on top of the watercolour heart shape).

I liked that effect, so I tried it with the circle (or spiral) shapes too!

Ink the mask/stamp:

Put it in place (face down) using tweezers and fingers (as it doesn't stick to the acrylic bloc):

Press with your acrylic bloc (or use your fingers if you want more lines to show):

Voila!

I did this with all three circles, stamping with Distress ink "barn door" first and then "black soot".

The finished tags from these experiments:

For the other heart I held the card with the stamped on heart in one hand (so the water could run down) and sprayed it again with water from the bottle...as the Distress ink will react again when getting in contact with water, this created some awesome grungy drip lines:

Then I dried the image and finished off the tag with a stamped word tile from a Red Lead stamp:

I hope you like my messy approach to using selfmade hot glue gun stencils, masks and/or stamps! Don't be afraid if things look messy at first - a lot of the really cool effects start showing as soon as your "experiments" have dried! Be daring! Try out different shapes and textures! It is a lot of fun and sooo inexpensive!

Monday, 21 April 2014

As I fell in love with the awesome Trellis die from Tim Holtz as soon as I saw it, I had to have it and still love the endless possibilities it offers! As you may remember I already had a heavy play with it over here.

My second entry to the April tag of Tim Holtz' "12 tags of 2014" is an altered latern I used the Trellis die on.

And I also took an image with the curtains closed so you can see how it looks when it is lit by the candle inside:

I had this old lantern with a simple glass which I covered with some japanese rice paper that I first tinted with Distress stain "tattered rose". Then I die cut the trellis twice from some Tim Holtz paper stash, and also two tattered pinecones (to create the fabulous roses) and one twig.

As I wanted to have roses in different sizes I tore the second pinecone shape into two parts and created two smaller roses from that one die cut. The other pinecone shape was used for a large rose.

To cover the metal stand of my lantern I used the rulers from the strip designs from one of the Tim Holtz papers and fixed it to the metal with hot glue. Then I glued the three roses and the twig on the spot where the overlap from my paperstrip was, to hide it.

The top of my lantern was given a border with the tiles from the trellis die cut and the backs that were visible were coloured with the Distress marker "broken china". I also glued some tiles into the trellis frame using hot glue, which makes them pop a little so the light can shine through the gaps!!!

For a finish I added some rough cord with which I fixed the metal idea-ology tag too. Some dabs of patina gilding wax around the platform of my lantern and the metal tag. Done! Hope you like it!

Saturday, 19 April 2014

I just found some time inbetween preparing the Easter cake and brunch for tomorrow and cleaning the flat to upload the first images I took with my new camera yesterday when I hiked the beautiful vineyards located at the Bisamberg northeast of Vienna.

I have decided to take up photographing again and it took me over two years to decide which kind of camera to buy until I stumbled upon a real bargain some weeks ago - and as this camera is the follower up model to my old one I didn't hesitate any longer. There's still a lot to learn because it does a lot of new things (and I haven't found the time yet to read the whole instructions)....but yesterday was a wonderful sunny day and we wanted to sit in one of those lovely "Heurigen" after a little walk.

Along the various paths you find a lot of wine cellars like this one.

I love their various looks of beautiful decay and that they seem to have become one with their surrounding.

If you want to see some more I would love to invite you over to my rather new "art blog" Von Pappe(which is meant to be the place where to share with you the "more earnest" and thoughtful side of me). But the images here are meant for all my true and dear and new readers and crafting friends:

Friday, 18 April 2014

This post is just a quick invitation for you to visit Our Creative Corner, where I have the great pleasure to share with you a very cheerful project I made to spotlight one of our prize sponsor's products.

Also...if you haven't seen yesterday's tutorial for DecoArt and That Craft Place , take a look over here.

This month the OCC team are sponsored by Tando Creative and I love their stuff! See what I did to...erm...with some of their fabulous stuff by hopping over to the OCC challenge blog. Need some cheering up today? Then this is the right thing to do. ;)

Hope this tiny sneak peek did its job! ;)
There's the whole project AND a full how-to to be found at the challenge blog! See you over there!